Tabletop games provide an experience like no other. Whether in the form of roleplaying games, card games, board games or more imaginative play, they allow participants to enter new worlds, experience new challenges and grow alongside their fellow players.
Across Australia, an array of talented teams and individuals are working to create these tabletop experiences for everyone.
ScreenHub recently spoke to many of these creatives, with a view to learn more about the art of tabletop games creation, and what’s happening in the Australian scene. What was most clear in our discussions was that while there are many challenges to working and creating within the country, anyone can make games, if they’re driven by passion and determination.
If you’re looking to create your own tabletop adventures in Australia, the simplest advice to share is this: the biggest hurdle is just getting started.
Creating board games in Australia – quick links
The growth of the tabletop gaming community in Australia
Phil Walker-Harding, the award-winning developer of Sushi Go! and creator of Sydney-based games publishing company Joey Games, tells ScreenHub that the inspiration to create games flowed out of his own experiences.
‘I had recently discovered games like Catan and Carcassonne coming out of Europe, and was immediately drawn into the hobby,’ Walker-Harding says of his first forays into tabletop games making in 2005.
‘I had really enjoyed board games when I was younger and this new school of design absolutely fascinated me. I’d always been interested in the idea of designing games, having played around with making my own board games and computer games as a kid, so jumping back into it felt quite natural.’
Walker-Harding says there were few resources to help with tabletop games creation back then, so he mostly experimented alone, as well as with the help of some online forums.
Swiftly, the tabletop games landscape changed and grew around him. Walker-Harding points to developments like the establishment of local awards, board games groups and events, which inspired him to continue making.
‘The community has changed greatly in the last 20 years,’ he says. ‘There are now far more active networks of designers here in Australia, and way more in the way of resources too.’
As he describes it, the rise of crowdfunding platforms like Kickstarter also helped the local tabletop games community grow, as well as the arrival of specialised manufacturing facilities and factories.
‘I think these two things made the possibility of making games more of a reality for newer designers, especially those living further from the hubs of the industry, like us here in Australia,’ says Walker-Harding.
Jump in and learn new skills
Jonathon Cheung of Quokka Games began creating tabletop experiences in this environment. Together with his brother Anderson, he played ‘a lot’ of board games in his early 20s, with favourites including Tokaido and Ticket to Ride. During the Covid pandemic, a discussion about the monotony of packing gave the brothers the idea to ‘gamify’ their experiences, and share stories through the medium of tabletop games.
‘Turning a boring task into something fun, that’s how we began our tabletop journey,’ Cheung says.
Neither brother had any education in tabletop games creation. Instead, they ‘just jumped in blind’ to the creation process, experimenting with ideas of play and figuring out what worked and what was fun with the help of family and friends.
After a process of refining their brightest ideas, the Quokka team learned to work together in a streamlined and light-hearted creation process.
‘I would come up with the game concept, theme, mechanics, all that, and then I would take it away and do as much as I can,’ Cheung says. ‘Then I’ll bring it to my brother, get him to test it, make him break it, and refine it that way.’
The most important thing, beyond any formal ideas about learning how to create board games, is the passion, per Cheung.
‘If you’re not passionate about it, don’t do it – because it’s a lot of work.’
Today, the Quokka Games team is inspired by the opportunity to encourage play, as well as spotlighting their culture in cooking-inspired tabletop games like Yum Cha, Hot Pot and Boba Master.
‘Yum Cha came about because I wanted to showcase my Asian heritage, my Chinese Heritage, to the West,’ Cheung says. ‘Yum Cha was what I grew up eating – we eat it for celebrations like birthday parties and graduation, and all that kind of stuff. So we wanted to showcase what we know in the West – and I think it’s been working for us.’
Brew up fresh story ideas – but start small
The team behind Storybrewers Roleplaying, Vee Hendro and Hayley Gordon, had similar goals when they embarked on their roleplaying game-making journey – to encourage players to experience playful, imaginative stories with real heart and beauty.
Storybrewers Roleplaying is an independent publishing company with a focus on tabletop RPGs where players can embody unique characters and go along with them on tales of scandal, intrigue, competition and fantasy.
Its most popular creation is Good Society, the Jane Austen roleplaying game, where you can ‘play out your very own regency drama of balls, estates, passions and desires’.
In developing this tabletop game, alongside others in the Storybrewers slate, Hendro and Gordon aimed to create experiences that would allow players to grow closer together. Neither had a specific background in game development – one day, they discovered tabletop roleplaying games and simply fell in love with the medium as a tool for storytelling.
‘We barely knew what a roleplaying game was, but I think we were very curious people,’ Hendro says. ‘We were trying lots of different things at the time, and … it wasn’t super long at all for us to start tinkering with [the medium] just for fun.’
Gordon and Hendro were drawn to the nature of creating tabletop experiences as being like collaborative playwriting. Working together as creative partners, and inspired by experiences like Mouse Guard, they began to develop the early designs for their games.
These early creations were small, one-page adventures developed as practice, with the aim of learning how to take a game from a start point to an end. It was about breaking down the process of writing, figuring out how to reverse-engineer games, and then developing their own creative ideas and intentions. They believe starting small is the best way to go, to find your feet and solidify your ambition.
All you need is paper and a pencil
Playing roleplaying games was also where Brian Holland, tabletop games creator and Chaosium Executive Producer found his passion for games creation.
‘It’s probably not a super unique backstory, but I played a lot of role-playing games,’ Holland tells ScreenHub. ‘I played a lot growing up, and I think the inspiration was “wouldn’t it be really cool to try and make one of these one day?”‘
Holland was deeply inspired playing tabletop games like Vampire: The Masquerade, and eventually took the step of creating his own adventures.
As he says, there were very few educational resources available to him when he began his game creation journey, so it was largely a matter of drawing on his own experiences playing games, and figuring out where his own writing and ideas could create additional flavour or intrigue.
‘If you want to start writing a roleplaying game, you just need a Word document, right? You just need a piece of paper and a pencil, and you can start writing stuff up.’
He adds, ‘You can even start seeing what you can. come up with – I think that’s probably the coolest thing about it. The barrier to entry is just so low.’
Resources to start creating tabletop games
As Holland outlines, starting the creative journey can be relatively simple. Whether aiming to develop a card game, board game or roleplaying adventure, you only need a pen and paper to start, paired with a passion and curiosity to see your brightest ideas through.
‘It doesn’t automatically mean you’re gonna do stuff that’s good, but in terms of being able to begin being creative, seeing what you can come up with, it’s very, very accessible in that sense,’ Holland says.
‘If you want to get started, don’t wait for permission. Just do it.’
Holland tells ScreenHub that playing and analysing existing tabletop games is a great way to get started. Beyond this, there are now more resources than ever available to local creatives – a stark change from when many veteran creators got their own start.
The growth of the popularity of tabletop games – hurried along by the need for fun and games during the isolation of the Covid lockdowns – has aided the development of educational resources for creatives.
Walker-Harding says there wasn’t really a ‘a formalised game design community’ locally when he was starting out, but a lot has changed. ‘There are now far more active networks of designers here in Australia, and way more in the way of resources too.’
The growth of bespoke manufacturing facilities was also a significant and surprising help, as it allowed Walker-Harding develop his own publishing company. As he notes, Joey Games is made possible by the flexibility of current tabletop games infrastructure – creatives can choose to self-publish, and have the support of relatively close manufacturers in China. They can also lean into crowdfunding to get their endeavours off the ground.
Where previously, the notion of self-publishing your own games seemed wildly ambitious, manufacturing and production is now far more streamlined and accessible.
Quokka Games also chooses to self-publish in order to maintain creative control and delivery of their ideas – and while Cheung acknowledges the complexity of this process, he also describes it as a rewarding journey.
For the Storybrewers Roleplaying team, being able to self-publish in this manner was invaluable to their creative freedom and their biggest ideas, as was the support of an ever-growing community of creatives.
‘You eventually find your people,’ Gordon says. ‘In those early days, it was tough, but we eventually came across a few other folks … It’s been great to start building those connections.’
Podcasts including the Board Game BBQ Podcast served as a virtual meeting point for many of the creatives we spoke to, popular for they way they illuminate the world of tabletop games locally and also speak to a shared appreciation of the medium.
For a physical meeting point, festivals like PAX Aus, Play Con and TableTopCon have also been invaluable places to learn new skills and connect with the local tabletop game community.
The value of community
As Holland says, ‘Events like PAX are pretty good because you meet people that are working on different things.’
Gordon adds, ‘I would recommend going to conventions and playing other people’s games. It’s a great way to meet people and also learn about what’s happening right now in design – to see who you vibe with, see some new stuff, and get to meet new people.’
Alongside these events, Holland points to online communities. ‘If you go into Facebook or Discord, you can also find the Australian Incubator community,’ he says. ‘It’s these tabletop game designers who have meet-ups, usually at brick and mortar stores with organised play spaces … It’s a really cool sense of community that’s pretty awesome.’
Many communities offer their own resources for discovery and skill-building. In the Dungeons & Dragons community, for one example, there are plenty of resources available to help with custom adventures.
There’s also the opportunity to self-publish your own paid adventures for many RPGs via Drive Thru RPG, a website that offers add-ons for an array of existing games.
As Holland tells ScreenHub, to further your practice it’s important to reach out to local community, as well as other talented creators overseas – to not be too isolationist, or afraid to ask questions of designers and creations living in other regions. There’s a real sense of camaraderie within the industry, with many communities being friendly and helpful to new starters and veterans alike.
Gordon agrees. ‘Community is really, really important,’ they say. ‘The network of indie game creators are amazing at informing each other of changes, sharing methods that they’re using to overcome different problems, and generally helping everyone to have an easier time.’
Reaching out, making those connections and making genuine friends can help to advance your practice, inspire new ideas, and help you to bring your project to completion.
While creating board games can be a solo experience – in that you can learn all the skills necessary to advance on your own, driven by your own passion and curiosity – what will enhance and elevate your creations is being inspired by those around you.
